Landslide
by rizahawkaye
Summary: RoyAi through the eyes of others.


**A/N:** Hi! I wrote this as a gift to someone on Tumblr. I hope y'all enjoy it!

 **1**.

 _They don't even need to speak to one another_ , Berthold mused, _and yet they understand_. That was something Berthold knew, in his heart, his daughter must have picked up from him. It was eerie, really, and made him glance to the old family photo on his mantel, the one where his late wife held Riza close, and her hand rested over Berthold's shoulder, and in that touch they spoke in a language only they understood. It wasn't code, like Berthold's alchemy notes, but it was something more. _Something more_.

He watched his daughter and apprentice work silently at his kitchen table, as they did every day, and most nights. Riza got up every few minutes to move around and check the soup on the stove, as if she could tell from the smell of it how cooked it was, just like her mother could do. She stirred at it a bit, sometimes tossed a pinch of salt into the pot, and Roy's eyes flickered from his alchemy text to her and then back again. Berthold worked hard to keep his focus on his own book, but the way the children were studying together in the quiet was... _intriguing_. Curiously so.

It was almost nostalgic.

 _Why?_

Roy tapped a finger on the center of the table as Riza sat down again. She laid her eyes on him and held her hand out, palm up, and a silent word passed between them. Roy transferred his text to her and then she fired questions out at him rapidly, in a soft, hushed tone that was quite characteristic of her, but also a bit foreign to Berthold. There was a piece of her tone that exposed a confidence in her words, in the person she was speaking to, that wasn't present when she spoke to anyone else.

"How much of the air is oxygen?" she asked, and Roy answered.

"What's the boiling point of water?" she went on, and her eyes ticked down the page.

"Most flammable gases?"

"Hydrogen, methane, butane, nitrogen," Roy said.

Riza shook her head. "That's wrong," she said, and pointed to a line of text, "it's ethylene, not nitrogen."

Roy ran a hand through his hair and bent his back over the back of the chair. "Ethylene, right," he affirmed, and stretched. She returned his book to him and the next round went to her, and Roy quizzed her on the history of Amestris, and military ranks, and the nuances of the nation. His eyes lit up as he did so, and Berthold felt a lump hard as rock and cold as ice in his gut. Something foreboding; something calculated glinted in the boy's eyes as Riza promised, straight from a line in her text, "Soldiers protect the people."

And she rose from the table once again, but this time she found Roy's eyes before she did so, and did Berthold imagine his smirk?

 _This boy..._

 **2** _._

 _...Roy Mustang._

That set her off. Rebecca noticed the way Riza's fingers curled tighter around her fork in the mess hall as young soldiers threw the name around like a hacky sack, each adding their own pillow of factoids to the man's building legend as if it were their own. And Rebecca saw the corners of Riza's mouth go sour, falling into a line of desire that begged for the name to fall off the face of the earth and drip out of her ears.

But Rebecca never asked about him.

She wondered, sure, but to ask her new friend (whose friendship was, quite frankly, a _gift_ ) was to risk the loss of her Riza. So no, she never asked, but Riza did tell her. She told her in terse movements and in the nights she'd wake in her bunk with her hands over her ears, and Rebecca thought she might just be trying to funnel the name out of the air itself, forcing it into a void somewhere off in space. A black hole, maybe, or the endless seepage of blood in the sands of Ishval. Blood Roy Mustang helped spill.

And so Rebecca mused that Roy Mustang was an old friend. A buddy from school, perhaps, or a neighbor, or a childhood pal. He had to be someone Riza knew personally; a person whose actions affected Riza deep in the core of her being, where the urge to slam her palms over her ears in the night ran rampant.

But Rebecca never asked, and not even after Riza came back from Ishval coated in sand and soot. She came back on Roy's right, a man named Hughes was on his left, and the two flanked him like Xingese Emperor guards, all high chins and darting eyes and puffed chests. Though there was defeat there, there was defiance too; and a certain aura of definity.

"I'm not leaving the military," Riza told Rebecca that night as she stripped her tattered coat from her shoulders, sloughing old mud onto the locker room floor.

"You said in your letter that Ishval was hell, Ri," Rebecca began. Riza had written her only once in the short time she'd been away, and there was everything in it to indicate Riza loathed what she'd come to be a part of. "You said this military was hell."

"It is," Riza said, "but I can change that."

 _Probably so_ had been Rebecca's thought, and then she didn't see Riza again until she was glued to that Roy Mustang's right like a reliable weapon. The pair shared tentative looks that held a thousand words in them, and they leaned into each other's ears and whispered things in quiet voices, and Rebecca had seen Roy Mustang place a hand at the small of Riza's back once, and it was then that she understood something.

 _Riza, you…_

 **3** _._

 _...are probably in love with him._

Somehow, though, Havoc knew _probably_ wasn't the right word. No, she'd already fallen for him, most likely long before Havoc got to know her here in this unit, or maybe even at the academy, where she had been just as reserved but a bit less heavy around the eyes.

Back before she was sent to Ishval, the mention of a Roy Mustang made her wince, and Havoc noticed every time, and it didn't take a glare from Rebecca for him to cease all talk of the Flame Alchemist in Hawkeye's presence. He became something like a friend to her and Rebecca back then, and now he was something more than a friend to Hawkeye; a comrade, someone she shared goals with. He would protect her from the fires of hell if he had to, and after she joined Mustang's team he was sure protecting her from fire was exactly what he'd need to do.

He realized quickly, however, that she could do all the protecting herself. Something changed. Hawkeye-from-the-academy became Hawkeye-from-Ishval, and resolve hardened over her skin and glossed over her eyes and she did this thing where she stuck to Mustang's side everywhere he went, and she didn't wince anymore, and Havoc let himself fall back a bit, and watch.

What he saw was an intricate display of dedication.

Havoc has never been the most observant of men, but he's not enjoyed many work hours away from Mustang and Hawkeye either, and his near constant proximity to them meant he inevitably came to understand things about his superior and his superior's adjutant that passing soldiers may miss entirely; secrets in glances, plans in touch, a future in movement.

He had once overheard soldiers gossipping about Mustang and Hawkeye's relationship in the mess hall, and they'd quipped on about it as though what the pair shared was superficial, and fueled by Hawkeye's apparent attractiveness, and Mustang's supposed womanizing. But that wasn't it, Havoc knew. What they had was passed between each other when Hawkeye's fingers grazed Mustang's shoulder as she helped him into his jacket. It wasn't in longing glances or lustful daydreams; it lived in Mustang's voice when he called for her, or Hawkeye's quiet contentment by his side, or the time that stretched before them, offering a promise.

It lived in the conversations they held in the absolute quiet.

 _It can't be placed with words,_ Havoc thought one day, sitting at his desk, listening to the his superior and his adjutant bicker about paperwork, _because it's…_

 **4.**

 _...a feeling._

Fuery didn't know what was going to happen when he threw the gun to the lieutenant. His hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat, he was panting out what he hoped wouldn't be his last, shallow breaths, and his knees were wobbling just enough that he had to consciously keep himself standing. He'd die if he dipped down. The lieutenant and Hayate would be left alone to fight a monster that didn't die if he dipped down, and for all Fuery knew the colonel was still on the other end of that phone line, holding his breath, waiting to listen to his subordinates prevail or get eaten.

The evening air was cool and calm, but inside that tower Fuery felt like he was suffocating. The setting sun against the tan stone illuminated the room an ugly, brownish orange that accentuated all of the monster's plump curves, every piece of it that could crush Fuery's legs, or that may have crushed the lieutenant's throat if Hayate hadn't intervened.

Feury gave one look to his lieutenant as she began firing her gun, and then he joined her, and that small room started echoing painfully with the sharp bursts of guns going off, each shot ringing through Feury's body, saying, _Die, die, die,_ please _die._

But the bullet holes kept closing almost as fast as they appeared, and Fuery grit his teeth to keep the fear from coming out in a host of screams. The lieutenant stood firm and strong by his side, but as the monster started to pull himself up, and shake off his wounds, he could hear her begin to huff out labored breaths. "Oh goodie," the fat man whined, his voice shrill, "time to eat."

The sound that came after that declaration was devastating. The familiar snap brought an almost instantaneous feeling of comfort to Fuery's gut, and as he watched the flame push the monster out of the tower, through layers of brick and concrete, he couldn't remember ever having been so glad to see the colonel's legendarily destructive flame, even as his head rang with the noise.

The lieutenant let out one, "Colonel!" and there were layers to that word that Fuery was too shaken with adrenaline to try and pry apart. He moved to the window against his own body's will, concerned for the lieutenant and the way that monster had gripped his thumbs tightly over the front of her throat.

He heard his superiors arguing and decided it was best to leave them to it, choosing instead to keep his eyes on the streets below them, where he spied their target scrambling down the road on all fours. He told the colonel, who worked fast to put the plan back into action. Fuery would stay and clean up in the tower, and, not surprisingly, the colonel would take the lieutenant with him. Fuery didn't especially want to stay in the room where he'd almost died, but there was a kind of deep relief on the colonel's face, and Fuery could just _feel_ it, as he sometimes could.

The lieutenant's _Colonel_ had been drenched in that feeling; relief, disbelief, _understanding._

The colonel had come to this place to save his subordinates, yes, but it was the lieutenant who had been in immediate danger. As Fuery watched the two of them leave the building from his place at the top of the stairs, he could hear the colonel's exasperated, "Lieutenant!" and there was so much weight in that word; relief, _feeling._

"I'm glad you're alive," he said.

 _Relief, understanding, feeling…_ Fuery thought as he peered around that doorway to watch them, _it's just feels...sometimes it's..._

 **5.**

 _...overpowering._

Alphonse kept his hands up, palms down at the lieutenant. He was surprised, to say the least, by her outburst. She was trembling badly...the hand wrapped around her pistol kept twitching, trying desperately to get a few more shots out of the empty barrel. He wanted to touch her shoulder, but she fell before he could muster up the courage. She collapsed onto her knees, tears falling from her jaw to land quietly on the floor. Lust moved forward.

Al moved too.

He didn't want the lieutenant to give in. He'd been there. He knows what it felt like to lose so much you think it would be better to be dead, and his brother had been there too, with Scar, with their mother…

 _Mother._

Maybe the lieutenant loved the colonel that much, but it didn't matter to Al, not now. He took hit after hit for the lieutenant, knowing that he couldn't stomach seeing someone he cared about cut down ever again, but empathizing with her pain all the same. Because he understood something then, during this altercation with Lust the homunculus. He understood that the lieutenant's breaking point was Colonel Mustang, and when the colonel spoke from somewhere on the edge of the room, Alphonse felt the lieutenant's breath hitch, and he knew: _She'll go to him, and Lust is there, and the colonel's going to kill her,_ and so he transmuted a wall and enveloped the lieutenant in his large body.

This wasn't the first time he was glad he was a suit of armor. The lieutenant was strong, all toned muscle and fierce determination, and Al had to work to keep her in his grip. She would run straight through those flames to be by the colonel's side, Al realized, and with that realization came the strength he needed to keep her tucked into him, and shove his body tight against his wall.

He could feel her energy the whole time he held her close. He could feel that overpowering need to be where the colonel was.

He let her go the second the flames stopped, and she scrambled to the colonel, tears pouring down her face. Al stood back, and watched the way the lieutenant propped the colonel up, her hand on his shoulder and his on her back.

"Thank you for protecting my subordinate," the colonel said, and then Al was dumbfounded. The lieutenant was fine, unscathed, not a scratch on her, but the colonel looked as though he were holding onto life by the tips of his fingers.

 _He was worried for her...he didn't come back just to kill Lust, he came back to protect..._

 **6.**

 _...Riza Hawkeye._

Of course she was the queen. She was the only woman in their unit, and Breda figured at first that that must have been why she was crowned as such. But the more he thought on it, the more he realized that it's the queen who can move anywhere; it's the queen who is the strongest piece on the board. The true conqueror... That's when he knew.

It didn't take Breda long. No, not Breda, not with his raging intelligence and machine-like cogs that churn deductions out like butter. Riza Hawkeye was the queen because she _was_ the strongest of them. Not in the literal sense but in the way she commanded their commander, and in the way he'd double over backward for her. The colonel made moves with his pieces in mind, but those moves had to be run by the lieutenant first, and she's the one who knows everything. Breda, Falman, Fuery, Havoc - they know enough of what they're doing to execute it, but Riza Hawkeye knows it _all._

She knows it all, yeah, and that's why the homunculi went for her hardest.

"We're hostages," Breda said to Havoc. He could almost feel his blood pressure rising with his nerves. _Hostages._ The word was jarring when he thought of it in context; undying beings held their lives in their deadly hands, and not even the colonel's impressive alchemy could push them back.

"Where'd everyone else get sent to?" Havoc pressed. He was relatively safe where he was going to go, and Breda wondered if the colonel had wished all of his subordinates could be so out of Central's way. He probably wished he could send them to all the corners of the world and shoulder this homunculi business on his own, but Hawkeye would never allow that.

 _Hawkeye._

"They have Hawkeye," Breda said. He said it as though it were something he needed to get out and say aloud - like this was the most important information he could offer in the moment. Havoc went silent for a moment, and Breda continued, "and they sent Feury to the front lines. Falman north...and you know where I'm going, where you are..."

"What do you mean?" Havoc asked. "What does 'they have Hawkeye' mean?"

"She's Fuhrer Bradley's personal assistant," Breda said, and sounded more somber than he intended to. And when Havoc ran a hand through his hair and let that sharp exhale out through his teeth, Breda understood better, and he kicked himself for getting there after the enemy did.

"Fuck," Havoc hissed.

 _She's the queen because he's the king,_ Breda thought as he leaned back in his seat, the flourescent hospital lights throwing unnatural light into his eyes, _and they're taking advantage of that. We're the colonel's pawns, and she's his pawn too, but…_

 **7.**

 _...she's his weakness._

If anyone could pull the colonel back, it was Lieutenant Hawkeye. Ed wasn't sure how he knew this, but he knew it. She'll claim it wasn't her, that it was Scar or Ed or even the pitiful downfall of Envy, but it was her. It was her and that thin sheet of terror over her eyes, and the words unsaid, and the way the gun quivered in her hand.

He wanted to protect her, even from himself. _Even from this_ , Ed thought as he watched the colonel take her hand in his and fall to the floor. That was the most intimate way he'd seen them touch in his years of knowing them. Lieutenant Hawkeye followed him down, and she looked exhausted and the blood on her jacket was already crusting over and the colonel didn't look at her. He kept his eyes on the floor like a chastized child.

"I've done it again," he said, and Ed's thoughts flickered back to what he knew of Ishval. What he knew of the tattoo on the lieutenant's back and the way the colonel had abused its power. _I've hurt you_ , he said, and Ed knew there was a crushing amount of context behind that.

Envy started to talk, and they wormed their way from Ed's grasp and started to taunt. No one moved, the mood was too wrought with whatever had just passed between the colonel and the lieutenant and Envy wasn't important anymore. When they took their life, Ed felt the sting of the action only momentarily, and the colonel looked to the floor and complained that the homunculus took the easy way out.

But the lieutenant seemed relieved.

Ed didn't make a habit out of analyzing the colonel's relationship with his subordinate, but in the moment when the colonel had let that flame out into the wall, he could feel _their_ feelings spewing from the heat.

The lieutenant had said what she needed to say to keep the colonel grounded. Ed could tell she was being truthful, that her life would end with the death of flame alchemy, because he'd heard her story. He knew she felt responsible for the bodies buried in the Ishvalan sands, and he knew that the colonel held her atonement in his hands.

If the colonel could never become Fuhrer, then what was the point? She'd lost herself in Central too, Al had told him, when she thought Lust had killed Mustang.

Of course she was relieved to see Envy take their life. _Of course. Because he's her weakness too…_

 **8.**

 _...and the homunculi know this. They've always known._

Scar didn't care if the lieutenant died. He didn't care if that Colonel Mustang ripped himself to pieces trying to get to her. He didn't care.

Her blood spilled over the stone, and with each passing second it sounded as though the colonel's desperation grew wildly. Frantically. Scar could understand that fear, because he'd felt it when Kimblee had killed his family, tore his brother into parts, but he couldn't find it in him to feel sad for the way the colonel writhed against the ground, and strained against his captors to get closer to her.

The display might have surprised Scar if he'd not been present during the colonel's fight with Envy. But he'd seen the way the colonel's bond with his lieutenant had kept his mind chained to sanity back in the tunnels, and now, as she lay dying, the links were snapping one by one, and Scar didn't care...but he was made aware.

 _Fool,_ he thought, _you fell in love and didn't know until it was too late. That lieutenant of yours..._

 **9.**

 _...it's so obvious._

Grumman had never thought otherwise. He always hoped that Roy and his adjutant would find some semblance of peace on their road to atonement, and he knew somewhere in his heart that they'd find that in one another. It couldn't have gone differently. The two of them were one soul in separate bodies... _or something stupidly cheesy like that_ , he thought. Grumman couldn't find another way to explain it - none of the right words existed.

The aftermath of the Promised Day brought a blind Roy, and a minced Riza, and two people who understood more about their own bond than they had previously. Grumman remembered the long weeks of recovery his granddaughter underwent, and he was not surprised that the colonel found time to be beside her, to help her from her hospital bed and touch her bandages gingerly and fall asleep with the back of her hand cradled against his cheek. He hadn't cared much about who was watching, not then.

Grumman pretended not to notice anyway. He was crowned Fuhrer almost the at the second the dust had settled on the battlefield that was Central. The people needed someone to sign the orders and swing the hammer of justice down over the officers who had revealed themselves as traitors, and he took advantage of the chaos to give Mustang the time he needed to regain his sight, to give his subordinate a patched spine, and to mentally work through his next steps.

 _(The reconstruction of Ishval, the growing scar tissue over Riza Hawkeye's throat_.)

Before Roy could get to Ishval, though, the young colonel needed to be reminded (over and over again, it seemed) that his most precious adjutant was okay. Fuhrer Grumman knew this, understood it, and let it be.

He'd let it be.

 _It's as though they speak with their minds,_ he's thought, and watched them in that hospital room. The colonel sat with a hand on hers, and his other was fisted in his lap, and his lieutenant was quizzing him on the irrigation system of Ishval, which had been decimated in the war. Between each word, between each question and answer was a world of history. There were apologies tucked into those syllables, and Grumman couldn't make them out but there were promises too - there was elation and triumph and dedication and _feeling._

And young Roy's eyes lit up as she went on, and did Grumman imagine Riza's smirk?

 _You two..._

 **10.**

 _...just need to tie the knot already!_


End file.
